


Unicorn for the Eleventh

by junko



Category: Bleach
Genre: #celebratingBLEACH, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:52:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7650664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trying to explain how supply requisitions work to Lieutenant Kusajishi, Renji runs into some trouble...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unicorn for the Eleventh

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr challenge: <http://celebratingbleach.tumblr.com>.

“What’ca doing, Ren-Ren?”

Looking up from his paperwork, Renji saw the Division’s little, pink-haired lieutenant, Yachiru Kusajishi’s smiling face.

Renji normally did his work in the supply shed, but the sweltering summer sun had driven him to find a cooler spot under the Division’s lone maple tree. He’d pilfered a jug of iced tea from the mess and set out all his supplies. Yachiru plunked down on the hard packed dirt beside him and started playing with the brush and ink well.

“I’m ordering supplies,” Renji explained, as she painted stripes on his bare toes. The ink was cool and ticklish on his skin. “Everything we want is listed somewhere in this big book,” he showed her the fat official catalogue that came from the First Division, “and then I write the name, its number, and how much we need on this sheet. Once the captain puts his mark on this paper, I send it to the First and they give us everything we asked for within a week.”

Renji didn’t expect Yachiru to care all that much. It just seemed polite to tell her how things worked, given she was their lieutenant and all. But, something about what he said made her eyes light up. “You can get anything that’s in the book?”

“Uh… well, pretty much. If it’s in here,” Renji agreed. Then, remembering a section on ‘party treats,’ Renji flipped open a page for her. He pointed out an item, “Yeah, look: if the captain says it’s okay, you can get taco aisu, octopus ice cream.”

“Oh! Let me see!” Yachiru dropped the ink brush and her tiny hands made grabby motions, until Renji handed over the catalogue. 

She snuggled up beside him, her back against the tree trunk. The catalogue looked huge in her lap as she poured over it seriously.

Renji smiled at her and had to resist the urge to ruffle her hair. No one did that. Not even the captain. Picking up the brush, Renji cleaned out the dust with the sleeve of his uniform and then went back to the requisition form. He was nearly done, anyway. Most of the things they ordered were fairly standard. He’d memorized their codes within a month of taking over this job after Iba promoted out.

Beside him, Yachiru seemed to be puzzling out the words. Over the buzz of the cicadas, Renji could hear soft murmuring sounds as her fingers traced characters. It seemed the rumors that Captain Kuchiki was teaching her to read were true.

They sat together like that for a long time. In fact, he finished before Yachiru was done flipping through the catalogue, so Renji leaned his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.

He must have fallen asleep, because when Renji woke up the catalogue was in his lap. The book was open to a page onto which a very careful, childish hand had added into the list of things beginning with the same letter: Unicorn.

In the margins, were additional words that read: “It’s in the book now, so you can get it. Please order me one. I would like 1 pink unicorn with a sparkly white mane.”

It was signed: Kusajishi Yachiru, Lt., 11th Division.

Looking at that, Renji knew he’d just been given a very serious assignment by the lieutenant. 

He had exactly one week to find a way to get Yachiru a unicorn.

#

“Thing is,” Renji slurred over his seventh--or was it ninth?--bowl of sake, “I’m pretty sure she could kill me with kidō. I mean, like dead as a doornail-like, not just shinigami dead…like, all the way dead.”

“Yeah, man, but where are you going to find a unicorn?” Shuhei Hisagi asked.

“You both know unicorns don’t exist, they’re mythical. Right? You know that?” Izuru Kira asked seriously, despite the drunken flush across his nose.

The three of them were sitting on the porch of a crowded izakaya under a red paper lantern. The remains of a plate of karaage sat on the low table between them. 

“Do you think that’s going to matter to Kenpachi?” Renji asked miserably, putting his head down on the table in despair. “I never seen Yachiru cry, but what you think he’d do to me if she did? I’m so dead. So very, very dead.”

Renji could feel Shuuhei awkwardly patting his topknot sympathetically. “Have another beer,” Shuuhei suggested. “Maybe if you get enough in, you’ll feel better.”

There was a clearing of a throat that made Renji crack one eye open and peer up over the crook of his elbow. A pale guy with a bad haircut and horns had scooted over to their table. He was nodding to Shuuhei like they knew each other. “I might be able to help you out.”

Lifting his head cautiously, Renji stared blurrily at the stranger. He nearly jumped back a foot when he finally noticed the white lab coat that was slung over the usual shihakushō. Turning to Shuuhei in horror and clutching Kira’s lapels, Renji said, “He’s from the Twelfth!”

“Uh, yeah, Renji this is Akon,” Shuuhei said. “Akon meet Renji Abarai, the most observant Sixth Seat of the Eleventh Division.”

Renji let go of Kira a little reluctantly and bowed a little greeting as Akon settled at their table. 

“I know a guy, okay?” Akon said, “Could probably get you what you need.”

If they weren’t talking about unicorns, Renji would be fairly certain he’d just stumbled into a yakuza drug deal. Shuuhei had grown serious and was nodding and glancing around, as if making sure they weren’t being overheard.

“What’s it going to cost him?” Shuuhei asked in a low voice.

Kira shook his head and leaned into Renji to whisper, “Don’t let them sell you a vat grown unicorn, Renji. Consider the source! It could have explosive horse apples…. Or, or toxic sneezes.”

Akon had obviously overheard Kira because he shook his head, “We’re not supposed to be in the business of making sentient things anymore, so I couldn’t make it here, understand? It’d be an import.”

That was starting to sound very expensive to Renji. “Yeah, so what are we talking about? How much this going to cost me?”

“The boss is always looking for test subjects.”

Renji tried not to scuttle back like a terrified mouse. “Gah! No, way! I’d rather take my chances with Kenpachi!!”

Akon laughed, a dry sound. “Just kidding. This’d be a personal favor I’m doing you, anyway.”

“Okay,” Renji said cautiously. Personal, huh? “So name your price.”

“You just have to distract my boss for about ten minutes,” Akon said. “I need to get into his office to… install something. If you can do that, I can get you a unicorn.”

Renji looked at his friends. “Your boss? You mean Captain Kurotsuchi?”

“Yep.” Akon nodded seriously. “Ten minutes. For a unicorn, Sixth Seat Abarai. You’re not going to get a better price.”

Renji must have been just drunk enough because it seemed like a pretty good deal. He stuck out his hand. Akon shook it. “Done.”

#

Distracting Captain Kurotsuchi was surprisingly easy. 

The next day, when Renji was mostly sober, they met up and Akon got Renji inside the Twelfth. He showed Renji to the captain’s office--which was actually a laboratory that smelled like formaldehyde--and then slipped away like a wraith, leaving Renji standing alone on the threshold. 

The captain was muttering to himself as he fussed with various tubes and beakers and burners. Renji stood in the doorway for a long time feeling vaguely terrified, but then he sucked in his courage with a big breath and said, “Captain Kurotsuchi? Can you help?”

Startled by Renji’s voice, Kurotsuchi spun around and started screeching, “Who are you? What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy with important work here, you small-minded imbecile?!”

“Right, okay, here’s the thing... “ Akon swore this might work, even though it seemed sketchy as fuck to Renji, “... my captain, Kenpachi Zaraki... “

Suddenly, somehow Captain Kurotsuchi was in Renji’s face. “Spit it out, boy!”

“Well, it’s weird, actually… he’s, like, leaking reiatsu.”

Kurotsuchi stepped back. His long-boned fingers thoughtfully stroked his chin. Renji held his breath. “Hmmm, let me gather some instruments. Then you can lead me to him.”

“Right,” Renji said with relief. It was just like Akon said. Getting Kurotsuchi out would be easy. 

Now, dealing with Kurotsuchi’s complete meltdown when he realized that Kenpachi always radiated thunderous reiatsu…

That was going to suck.

#

It was just under deadline, a day shy of a week later that the package arrived. 

Renji was sparring in the dusty practice yard when he heard a commotion at the front gate. He didn’t dare turn his eyes from his opponent’s, but he heard Ikkaku shout, “If this is some kind of retribution prank for the one Abarai pulled on your captain last week, you can forget it.”

Renji cut the practice short by stepping in close and giving his opponent a hard uppercut to the jaw. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Sheathing Zabimaru, Renji headed to the gate. “Oi, don’t turn them away, sempai!”

“What the fuck, Renji?” Ikkaku stood with a one hand on his hip and the other angrily tapping a sheathed Hōzukimaru over his shoulder. Akon and some guy who looked a little like a frog stood just outside of the gate. They’d been carrying a wooden crate on their shoulders and they set it down in the road now. It had a bunch of postage marks on it and a logo emblazoned on it that read, ‘Compliments of Urahara Shōten.’ Curiously, it was also covered in bright red hearts. Ikkaku used Hōzukimaru to gesture at the lab-coated Shinigami and their burden. “What the fuck is this?”

“I told you it wasn’t no prank. I did them guys a favor. Now they’re paying up,” Renji explained. 

Except the box was… tiny. It only came up to Akon’s hip, and there didn’t seem to be any air holes.

“Is this… is this right?” Renji asked. “Is this what I ordered? I guess I thought it would be bigger. You know, like horse-sized?”

“The lieutenant has never seen a unicorn, has she?” Akon asked seriously.

“Well, of course not--”

“There you go then!” He said happily tapping the top of the box. “All yours!”

Renji got the feeling he’d just been snookered. As Akon started to turn away, Renji grabbed the collar of his lab coat. “Now listen here, you. I kept your captain away for two and a half hours. The deal was only ten minutes. So this better be the genuine article or…” An appropropriate threat failed him, so he just snarled, “Or else.”

Akon’s hands were in the air. “You did me a huge favor, Abarai. This is the very best model, trust me. Your lieutenant won’t have to feed it or clean up any poop. But it’s… kind of, mostly alive and she can groom it and play horsey all she wants.”

Renji had already let go when Akon had said ‘best’ and so Akon had already slipped away by the time the idea of ‘kind of, mostly alive’ hit him. “Oi!” but somehow the sneaky little Twelfth Division Third Seat was already gone--probably shunpo’d, but it was as if they’d disappeared into thin air.

“Bastards,” Renji muttered.

When Renji turned around, he saw Ikkaku using Hōzukimaru like a crowbar. “Wait!” he said for reasons he wasn’t even entirely sure of, but it was far too late.

The crate exploded.

Wood flew everywhere. Instead of puncturing everyone with splinters, anywhere the shards hit they disintegrated into a cloud of pink glitter. Instead of fire, some kind of light emanated from the blown open crate… and it seemed to form a perfect, shimmering rainbow. The air was likewise filled with a shower of bright red hearts that proclaimed ‘use this for 10% off your next purchase at Urahara Shōten!’

Everything and everyone in the Eleventh, even the most brutish of thugs, was covered in glitter and hearts.

Even Kenpachi. Hearts had stuck themselves to the spikes of his hair and apparently he’d taken a glitter-splinter to the center of his chest. It made a kind of sparkling starburst Hollow hole….

And the look in Kenpachi Zaraki’s eyes was about as murderous as any Hollow’s.

Renji was sure he was going to die now. It was going to be the most humiliating death in the history of the Soul Society because he’d taken a huge brunt of the blast and was entirely pink and gold glitter from head to foot. 

As Kenpachi advanced on the scene, Renji backed up, his hands in the air. “I… uh, I can explain, Captain--”

Only he never had to because just then, an adorable white horse face poked up shyly from the remains of the box. It had a rainbow colored mane and the most perfect pearlescent horn Renji had ever seen. Its eyes were large and doey, almost like a cartoon and the little bray it made was so… kawaii.

Everything was adorable, until it spotted Ikkaku. Whether it was his bald head (now covered in pink glitter) or just the way he was standing, no one would ever know, but the thing leaped from the box and attacked. Horn down, like a charging bull, it headed for Ikkaku at breakneck speed. Ikkaku took one look at it, muttered something absolutely filthy and took off running. 

For a second Renji couldn't believe it, then the unicorn’s attention shifted to him. Those eyes, those large doe-like eyes that he'd thought were so cute, now gleamed with murderous rage. With a yip of fright, Renji followed Ikkaku, horribly aware of the homicidal unicorn right on his heels. 

He had a brief thought that involved Zabimaru, but the only way to stop that thing would be to destroy it. If he did that, he’d be back where he started and Yachiru would slaughter him. Renji could hear her now, bouncing up and down on Kenpachi's shoulder, voice full of glee as she shouted, 

“My unicorn! I love it, Kenny! Can we keep it?”

Ahead of him, Ikkaku reached the maple tree, and was halfway up it by the time Renji started climbing. They reached the top branch together and stopped, hanging over it to catch their breath. Below them, the unicorn pranced around the courtyard, Yachiru bouncing along behind, and Renji made a decision. He was never ever going to trust the Twelfth again. 

And he was going to teach Yumichika how to do supplies.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh! And I forgot to thank Josey (cestus) for her help with the ending of this, which was JUST NOT COMING TO ME. She basically wrote several of the last paragraphs of this fic, so if you love them go love some others of her work!


End file.
